Butler Trust News

During a year in which prisons again made negative headlines, the Butler Trust’s Director, Simon Shepherd, has been quietly exploring the opposite: what’s positive about our prisons? In an ambitious undertaking, he’s visiting every closed prison in England and Wales to ask individual groups of prisoners, officers, and managers, an unusual question: “What’s good about this prison?”

Simon has, so far, travelled over 9,000 miles and held 186 forums, involving over 1000 people, across 62 prisons. Results from each visit are posted online, along with a running total of prisons visited, days spent on the road, miles travelled, and forums held, at GoodBookofPrisons.com. In due course there will be a more detailed narrative report to accompany the full set of results and the Butler Trust will publish a book.

After a summer spent reviewing and rating the 350+ nominations received for this year’s Award Scheme, our volunteer Sifting Panel met at the end of September to agree the shortlist to go through to the final stage of judging for the 2018-19 Butler Trust Awards.

The standard was as high as ever and the decision-making as difficult as always – but after much deliberation, the Sifting Panel agreed to put through a final shortlist of 40 nominations.

Congratulations to all of the following – and good luck in the next stage of the process (our final Judging Panel will meet in November and we will announce the names of this year’s Award Winners and Commendees in the New Year):

Didn’t you do well?

Although Spring took her time turning up, she arrived in some style – with the early-May Bank Holiday the warmest since the holiday began in 1978. With the World Cup getting closer, temperatures climbing, and long Midsummer nights, we started to wonder if the famous – in our office, anyway – last minute rush of nominations would happen this year. England were headed for the Round of 16 by the time our deadline was reached and once more, you did us proud: cheering along the best and brightest people working around you, from all four corners of the kingdom, you only went and broke the record for the most nominations ever – 383 in total!

Now you might think that with the difficulties in the sector over recent years, a lot of deep experience leaving the game, and a large influx of new recruits coming on board, that this would dent your enthusiasm for looking around at what your co-workers and team mates are up to, nodding approvingly as you notice the people doing the really good stuff, day in, day out. But as our Director, Simon Shepherd, never tires of pointing out: you are not like other professions. You get little praise in public (which was why we were set up in the first place), and no matter what happens, you still come in to work the next day and start over again. So thank you, once more. Without your support, the nominations – and the Awards – would never happen.

Nominations will need to be signed off via your Local Butler Trust Champion before they can be sent on to us, and the nomination form includes guidance on who you should forward your nomination to.

[Note for Local Champions: if you have any queries about completing the supporting documentation and getting nominations signed off, please contact us as soon as possible (before the 30 June deadline!)]

The dust may only just have settled on the Award Ceremony for last year’s winners, but nominations are now open for this year’s Awards!

The Awards are presented by our Patron, HRH The Princess Royal, and help give credit where it’s due to people who go above and beyond in their work in prisons, probation and youth justice settings (including volunteers and third-party employees) – and just being nominated shows someone’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.